Pages

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Tsunami Countdown by Boyd Morrison ★ ★ ★★

A THRILLER OF A RIDE(In the USA known as “The Rogue Wave”)

It was twelve-thirty a.m. and my husband was falling
asleep.‘How much longer are you going
to read?’ he mumbled.

‘It’s eleven minutes until the tsunami hits and there is
no way I’m leaving now,’ I answered. And I kept reading “The Tsunami
Countdown” by Boyd Morrison until the wave hit, and then kept going until my
weary eyes forced me to put it down somewhere around two a.m.

And on the next night I was there again until the wee
small hours because there was no way I was going to sleep before I finished
this book. Of course, the next day was a
tsunami of exhaustion but it was worth it.

This book grabs you on the first page, hurls you along
faster than the impending wave and leaves you panting for breath at the
conclusion.It is cinematic in scope and
style. In fact, as much as it would make a great movie, you really don’t need a
film to capture the imagery.Boyd
Morrison does a brilliant enough job with his words.

The story lands us
smack bang in the Pacific Ocean during an airliner crash from an unexplained
explosion.There are no survivors. Kai Tanaka, the new and untested assistant
director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, notices a minor
seismic disturbance in that region but it does not seem big enough to cause a
Tsunami.

However, it becomes
clear when they lose contact with Christmas Island and its three thousand
inhabitants, and a remote sensor in the region, Kai begins to suspect there is
a disaster on its way within the hour.He
must make the decision whether to warn Hawaii and save millions of lives
including his wife and daughter.There
is a lot at stake if he is wrong.It will
cost the State a fortune and he will lose his job.

What happens after
the wave hits is incredible and exciting as Kai and a band of survivors
struggle to stay alive as the greatest Tsunami ever imagined strikes the
Islands, destroying everything in its path.

Michael Crichton fans
will eat this book up and if you are going to indulge in this thrilling
adventure novel, then be sure to stock up on energy drinks (for the weary next
day) as the impending wave picks you up from your life and dumps you in Boyd
Morrison’s world. From the first page until the last there is no escape.

My review copy of 'The Tsunami Countdown' supplied by
Hachette Australia. For more information about this book, click through to
Hachette website HERE.

My wife and I had a unique agreement. After we had
been married for three years, she decided to attend medical school, but having
earned an English degree in college, she needed two years for her pre-med
requirements. So that meant nine years of pre-med, med school, and residency,
during which time I was the wage-earner with a full-time job, unable to spend
much time on my passion, writing fiction. When she became a practicing physician,
I got nine years to make my dream come true and become a published author as
she supported me. It was a great deal. I did it in less than five years.

I took a roundabout route to becoming a novelist.
Fresh from earning a BS in mechanical engineering from Rice University, I got a
job with Lockheed working on the Space Station Freedom project at Johnson Space
Center. I got to play with a lot of cool stuff like the space shuttle and
station mockups, the robot arm, and the Precision Air-Bearing Floor, which is
like a giant air hockey table that simulates microgravity. The best experience
I had was when my job required me to fly on NASA's Vomit Comet, the same KC-135
plane used to train astronauts for zero gravity and to film the space sequences
in the movie, Apollo 13. I didn't vomit.

After a couple of years at NASA, I decided to go back
to grad school and get a PhD in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech. My
specialty in ergonomics came in handy at RCA, where I designed electronic
program guides for TVs and digital satellite systems. During my career at RCA,
I earned eleven US patents.

When my wife and I moved to Seattle for her residency
at the University of Washington, I got every ten-year-old boy's fantasy job in
the Xbox games group at Microsoft. As a usability manager, it was my
responsibility to make games as fun and user-friendly as possible. Yes, I got
paid to play video games. I was credited on both PC and Xbox games, including
Project Gotham Racing 2, Flight Simulator 2004, and Forza Motorsport. I left
Microsoft to become a full-time writer, but I'm still a gamer.

In 2003 I fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a
Jeopardy! Champion. To see exactly which questions I got right and wrong, check
out my two games on the Jeopardy! Archive. You can find out how I got onto
the show in this article.

Networked Blogs Member (Great Feed)

Total Pageviews

Who has visited before you...

Search This Blog

WONDERFUL READERS CLUB

FREE BOOKS!

JOIN MY WONDERFUL READERS CLUB

Me, myself and I & a bunch of characters

Hey you with the bookmark!

Susan May is a writer; so she is an avid reader. Her taste is eclectic, and she's not a literary snob. Susan has gathered together some other crazed readers (mostly other Mum's she knows) so that you can read more reviews read by critics who enjoy that genre. So, you will find reviews here based on whether the book delivers what it promises. We haven't got time to read the ones that don't.

My Recent Reads

Most of the comments about this book, good & bad are correct. It is not a well written book but really is in the end an engrossing story. It's no Gone With The Wind but there is enough drama to keep it interesting. It needs a good edit thou...